MYRISTICA MOSCHATA. 
75 
exudes when the bark is wounded ; the leaves have an aromatic 
«raell, are elliptical, pointed, undulated, entire, from tfiree to five 
inches long, of a bright green colour on the upper surface, greyish 
underneath, and stand on short petioles placed alternately on the 
branches ; the flowers are inodorous, and are present at the same 
time with the fruit. The male and female flowers are on the same or 
separate trees ; the calyx is thick and fleshy, and divided into three 
spreading, pointed segments ; there are no corollas ; the filaments in 
the male flowers are united into a cylindrical column, inserted into 
the receptacle ; the anthers are linear, two-celled, and surrounding 
the upper half of the filaments. The female flowers in appearance 
resemble the male ; the germen is superior or ovate ; style short, 
terminated by two stigmas ; the fruit is an elliptico-spheriodal one- 
celled berry, nearly the size of a peach, smooth, fleshy, and marked 
with a shallow longitudinal groove on one side : the fleshy substance 
of the fruit abounds with an astringent juice, and finally dries up 
into a coriaceous crust, when it opens on one side and presents the 
nutmeg in its shell, surrounded with its arillus, which is the ofiicinal 
mace ; the arillus is fleshy, coriaceous, of a golden yellow or scarlet 
colour when recent, changing to a reddish brown as it becomes dry ; 
the kernel, i. e. the nutmeg, is of a roundish or ovate form, marked 
on the outside with many vermicular furrows, within of a fleshy, 
albuminous substance, variegated with reddish brown veins, abound- 
ing with oil ; near the base is a cavity, in which is situated the 
embryo. 
There are several species of this tree, and we are told by Dr. Ainslie,* 
that an inferior and long-shaped kind of a nutmeg is common in the 
Island of Borneo ; and there is a wild sort {Cat Judical) frequently 
to be met with in some of the woods of Southern India, especially in 
Canara, which Dr. Buchanan thinks might be greatly improved by 
cultivation. The true nutmeg tree now grows to a tolerable size in 
certain sheltered situations in the Tiunivelly district, especially 
Courtalum, and bears pretty good fruit. From Mr. Moon's Cata- 
logue of Ceylon plants, we learn that several species of Myristica 
grow in that island, of which the true nutmeg is one, and known by 
the Singhalese name of Sadikka. Mr. Crawford, in his History of 
the Indian Archipelago, informs us that there are no less than eight 
cultivated varieties of the tree in the Indian Islands ; and according 
* MateriK Iiidica. 
